One a story of agony, featuring more wretched luck for Sir Bradley Wiggins, and the other a fairytale breakthrough for the unheralded Alex Dowsett.

The ill-fortune which has dogged Wiggins over the first week struck again in the critical time trial from Gabbice Mare to Saltara and now leaves him with his work dreadfully cut out over the next fortnight to become the first Briton to win the event as he could only finish second in the pivotal eighth stage behind the dumbfounded Dowsett.

On a day when he would have been firmly expecting to grasp the *maglia rosa*, Wiggins, whose new time trial bike suffered a puncture during the twisting, testing 54.8km slog and necessitated a quick change to an old model, saw his main rival for the title, Vincenzo Nibali, emblazoned in pink instead.

So heading for the mountains, very much the natural habitat of Nibali, a climber in buoyant mood, Wiggins, instead of pre-Giro dreams of protecting a lead of three minutes, finds himself 1min 16sec behind the Italian. The defender must now become the hunter.

Team Sky’s strategy of control and protect will have to be re-evaluated if Wiggins is to rebound but the man himself is still talking a good game. “It’s all to play for still,” he said. “There was some initial disappointment because I wanted to win the stage and it’s been a challenging few days. But it is what it is; it’s going to be a hell of a race for the next two weeks.”

Wiggins put in a stirring effort to fight back and ensure a British one-two but expectations of him demolishing his rivals in his favourite wrestle with the clock simply never materialised.

Extraordinarily, just a week after Mark Cavendish kicked off the whole event with a brilliant triumph, another Briton was to stand atop the podium. Not the odds-on favourite Wiggins but his former Sky team-mate, the 50-1 shot Dowsett, who savoured the ride of his life in Movistar’s colours to win a stage in his debut Grand Tour.

The 24-year-old, one of the early starters, could barely believe it as he watched anxiously for nearly three hours as, one by one, the favourites piled home up the cruel, punishing final kilometre only to find his time of 1hr 16min 27sec beyond them.

It was an incredible performance but, even given his credentials as British time trial champ, one which Dowsett expected the Olympic gold medallist to demolish. Yet even though Wiggins finished with remarkable strength and power to claw back 49 seconds over the final 3.3km, he was still 10 seconds slower.

Doubtless, Wiggins would have won if not for suffering more misfortune following Friday’s fall on the wet descent to Pescara. This time, he was just finding a decent rhythm on a course with enough tight twists and undulations to make that not the easiest proposition when a flat tyre after 18 minutes' riding saw him forced to jettison his new Pinarello Bolide time trial bike with some disgust.

He waved to his team car and deposited the bike into the bushes. Then, forced to use his old faithful Graal bike, he admitted to feeling “a bit ruffled” after he remounted and it certainly cost him the seconds which would have deprived Dowsett of his finest hour.

Yet after Wiggins had dismounted with the declaration that he had ridden “pretty well”, Chelmsford’s Dowsett could only look on helplessly as it looked as if Nibali would snatch the victory from him.

The Italian had looked in inspired mood from the start. The trial began close to Valentino Rossi’s birthplace in Tavullia and, at points, it almost felt as if Nibali was chucking himself into the corners like the great motorcyclist as he sought to make up for a time-trialling technique, which was so obviously inferior to Wiggins’s, through sheer daring.

While Wiggins looked tentative and uncomfortable on the still slightly damp descents, Nibali swept down them to be a minute quicker at the first 26km checkpoint in Pesaro.

Yet even though the final killing kilometres saw him finish 11 seconds slower than Wiggins, this felt like both a “big surprise” and a major triumph to the Italian, as he was widely expected to be heavily beaten in the same way that the suffering defending champion, Ryder Hesjedal, was. The Canadian is now over two minutes behind Nibali.

None could top Dowsett, who had moved from Sky last year partly because he wanted more chances of competing in the Grand Tours. “It was super difficult but I feel like I got everything out,” he said. “I’ve proved I can turn my hand to any type of time trial.”

“I’m pleased for Alex. It’s a brilliant start to his Grand Tour career,” said Wiggins of the latest energising British triumph. Yet as he now lies fourth behind the major contenders Nibali, Cadel Evans and Robert Gesink, it will take Wiggins’s most magnificent effort yet to write an even more compelling success story a fortnight hence in Brescia.